


all my roads, they lead to you

by bubblegumandblood



Category: Naruto
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 10:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19271410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubblegumandblood/pseuds/bubblegumandblood
Summary: Gaara contemplates life and his relationship with Naruto while spending another peaceful night at Naruto's apartment. Short and fluffy!





	all my roads, they lead to you

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic that I've written and actually finished in a very long time! Constructive criticism or straight-up praise and/or flattery would be loved if you feel like it. 
> 
> This is pretty much my own self-indulgent wish fulfilment for NaruGaa to be cute and happy together as Kages. 
> 
> The title is from the song All For You by Sister Hazel, which honestly has nothing at all to do with the story. 
> 
> Enjoy <3

Gaara of the Sand was never meant to have a happy ending. The things he’d done in his life - awful things, giving into Shukaku’s rage and the sweet, sick screams for the blood that he could still taste in the back of his throat, for the deaths of others to validate his own existence - these were the things that should have precluded him from happiness of any sort. But somehow, he had been given this blessing. He had been given a happy ending to his tragedy, and he would do anything not to lose it. 

Naruto’s apartment was dark and silent but for the soft hum of the electric fan strategically pointed at the twin bed in which two bodies lay crammed and entangled. The circulation of cool air had been welcome and pleasant the night before, when Gaara and Naruto had collapsed onto the bed, exhausted and skin sticky-hot from lack of air-conditioning and the humid Konoha summer. Now, hours later, Gaara - still accustomed to the drier, more intense and consistent heat of the desert - felt like he was freezing everywhere except where Naruto had nuzzled into his shoulder. The moment felt as though it was encased in a bubble made of glass - Naruto’s gentle, warm breath on Gaara’s neck, the way his blonde hair fell lazily across his sleeping face without his headband to hold it back, the reassuring weight of his arm cast protectively across Gaara’s chest. If Gaara moved, even slightly, the bubble would shatter and the spell would be broken, but that would be okay, because these moments, while always precious, were not rarities - not anymore.

Gaara still didn’t sleep much - these nights with Naruto, he could sometimes relax enough to catch an hour here or there, but mostly he stayed awake, contemplating the circumstances that had led him to these moments. Every moment in his life, good and bad, that had come together to bring him to this apartment, this bed, and the safety of these arms played in his mind while his thumb traced slow circles on Naruto’s warm back.

They didn’t have a name for what they meant to each other. It was too complex, too confusing, too big and grand and meaningful to put into words or labels. No one but they could ever understand the nature of the relationship between the Kazekage and the Hokage, Suna and Konoha, sand and fire. No one but they could understand the meaning behind a touch of the hand, a shared glance that led to desperate, hungry kisses in an unused room, the door sealed with sand, during breaks in days-long Kage meetings. Anyone could see it, but only they could understand it, could make sense of it, or not. Naruto’s friends and Gaara’s siblings had long since stopped asking the questions that they could never answer. Civilians and shinobi alike still whispered about the leaders - some with harmless curiosity, others harsher, with a vitriol Gaara never understood, and Naruto did, but couldn’t explain in a way that satisfied either of them.

The first stream of sunlight slipped through the gaps in Naruto’s blinds, painting stripes of fiery gold on his skin and hair. Gaara inhaled sharply in wonder at the sight, then froze, fearful that his breath had broken the spell. His body tensed slightly as Naruto shifted, smiling in his sleep, and tightened his grip on Gaara, burying his face even deeper into Gaara’s neck. Gaara let his breath out slowly - Naruto might be the Hokage now, but he still slept like the dead whenever he could. The moment was safe for now. 

Gaara couldn’t remember the exact moment that he knew the nature of his relationship with Naruto had changed. Temari said that it was the day, years and years earlier, when they first fought after the disruption of the chunin exams and Naruto “headbutted sense into him”. Kankuro claimed that it was when Naruto was ready to die himself to bring Gaara back when the Akatsuki kidnapped him and removed Shukaku from inside of him. They all had their suspicions, but Gaara knew it couldn’t be articulated so easily as that. It was true they’d been drawn to each other from the very beginning, children hated, feared, and isolated by the villages they called home, but the connection they’d forged went so far beyond that. 

It went beyond shinobi, beyond Jinchuriki, beyond shared traumas, childish rivalries, and personal goals. It was something that drew from the most human parts of them, something that ached for the understanding no one else had ever been able to give. It was two boys sitting too close on the roof of the Kazekage mansion on a clear night, watching the stars that were brighter than Gaara could ever remember them being before. It was Naruto, flushed and stammering - Naruto, who was never at a loss for words, unable to voice what he needed to, and then it was Gaara finally closing the distance between them, pleading and desperate, bringing their lips together with frantic, inexperienced clumsiness. It was Naruto grabbing Gaara’s hand so he couldn’t run away from what he’d done, and whispering brokenly, “Please don’t go.”

Maybe Gaara did know when it happened. More than that, he knew that it was always there between them, as plain as the kanji tattooed on his forehead. They never said it out loud - but then, they never had to. It was in every action, every look, every touch, eternal and unconditional. They were still young, but they were no longer children; they had grown together, learned, at times fought, but always come back together. Always leaned on each other and always supported each other. Not always patient, not always immediately understanding, but never wavering. 

Naruto shifted again, yawning and stretching languidly as he slowly blinked awake. He smiled at Gaara with childlike excitement and drew up slightly to kiss his cheek. Gaara’s eyes drifted closed contentedly, and he couldn’t help the bubble of joy that rose in his chest and made his heartbeat skip slightly as Naruto rasped, voice tender and thick with sleep, “Good morning, sweetheart.”

No, Gaara should not have been allowed to have a happy ending. By all accounts, he didn’t even deserve to have met a person like Naruto Uzumaki. But Gaara had fought and he had found it, the one person he could always believe in, the one person who would always believe in him, and he was never going to let this go.


End file.
